My comment on this piece.
Great piece Daniella. Unlike most of the ivory tower stuff printed in The Guardian by paid up wonks and experts, this rings true and Daniella has done the footwork. We get reams of stuff from the corporate consensus about fighting terrorism when the real story since 911 and before is America's need for enemies in order to justify its ever expanding military machine and its expanding archipelago of bases and client regimes around the world. It's about power, energy, defence budgets and the military industrial complex. The US was built on a frontier colonial mindset that always sees enemies. Indeed, it has had enemies over the years but it was President Eisenhower who pointed out the dangers of the military industrial complex, and the founding fathers who warned against the dangers of a standing army. The Afghans are not wrong.
Since 2000 US military spending has increased 9% a year! According to some measures, US military spending today, at approximately $1 trillion per annum, is higher in real terms than it was during World War 2. This in an era when America no longer has any significant military enemies.
Islamism, like Saddam Hussein, is a US client force, created first to bring down the Soviet Union, then used as proxies in the central Asian cold war between the West, Russia and China. (Saddam was used against Iran and then got out of hand, just like the Islamists). Pakistan created the Taliban, Pakistan receives billions in aid from the US, and the US pays off various Afghan warlords who in turn pay off the Taliban.
The whole war on terror in its us-and-them simplicity is a phantom created by the Neocons to justify their plans for world domination. If people want to deny the existence of PNAC that's fine. And of course none of the following happened:
Head of Pakistani intelligence met all senior US political and military leaders in a visit to US just prior to and during 911. He went away with a new US alliance with Pakistan.
French and Indian news reports show ISI colonel paid Mohammed Atta $100,000 in to his bank account days before 911.
3 out of the 4 terrorist pilots trained at Venice air base in Florida, the CIA's favourite base for drug running and black ops going back to the 1950s.
Instead of declaring war on Pakistan after 911, America embraced it and turned on Afghanistan and Iraq. Osama Bin Laden is not even on the wanted list for 911 because, as the FBI has stated, there is no evidence linking him to the attacks.
America accounts for half of the world's military spending. At least a third of US taxpayer dollars goes on the military. I would not pay those taxes. When will Americans wake up to the fact that they are a juggernaut heading for a cliff and that they are being duped into a permanent war, as Dick Cheney stated clearly after 911? It will bankrupt them.
Wednesday 26 May 2010
How the US funds the Taliban
From The Nation:
On October 29, 2001, while the Taliban's rule over Afghanistan was under assault, the regime's ambassador in Islamabad gave a chaotic press conference in front of several dozen reporters sitting on the grass. On the Taliban diplomat's right sat his interpreter, Ahmad Rateb Popal, a man with an imposing presence. Like the ambassador, Popal wore a black turban, and he had a huge bushy beard. He had a black patch over his right eye socket, a prosthetic left arm and a deformed right hand, the result of injuries from an explosives mishap during an old operation against the Soviets in Kabul.
Read more
On October 29, 2001, while the Taliban's rule over Afghanistan was under assault, the regime's ambassador in Islamabad gave a chaotic press conference in front of several dozen reporters sitting on the grass. On the Taliban diplomat's right sat his interpreter, Ahmad Rateb Popal, a man with an imposing presence. Like the ambassador, Popal wore a black turban, and he had a huge bushy beard. He had a black patch over his right eye socket, a prosthetic left arm and a deformed right hand, the result of injuries from an explosives mishap during an old operation against the Soviets in Kabul.
Read more
Monday 24 May 2010
Your Tax Dollars at War: More than 53% of Your Tax Payment Goes to the Military
Your Tax Dollars at War: More than 53% of Your Tax Payment Goes to the Military
From http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/dave_lindorff/27987/your_tax_dollars_at_war_more_than_53_of_your_tax_payment_goes_to_the_military
From http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/dave_lindorff/27987/your_tax_dollars_at_war_more_than_53_of_your_tax_payment_goes_to_the_military
Britain's spending on war
This table shows that after pensions, healthcare, education and welfare, UK military spending is the fourth biggest consumer of tax income, at £43 billion ($62 billion). By comparison education spending is £80 billion and transport only £13 billion. Britain's GDP is £1.4 trillion and its overall government spending £633 billion. As a % of total government spending defence is 6.7%. Compared to US military spending - at $1 trillion or 30% of spending, Britain's is low. But it is still around £1000 per adult in the country. I am not at all happy that that much of my tax money is going on the military.
Friday 21 May 2010
Battle over Venice Airport, where Atta 'trained'
Sept 08, 2009
by Daniel Hopsicker
Source
A fierce war being waged for control of the Venice Municipal Airport has led to the discovery of covert CIA and military operations, dating back to at least 1959, which go well beyond what was previously known to have taken place there.
Operations at the Venice Airport have involved individuals whose names figure prominently in the Kennedy Assassination, for example Texas oilman General D. H. (Harry) Byrd, owner of a defense contractor which in the late 50's and early 60's built and launched Regulus II cruise missiles from the beach directly in front of the Venice Airport in a program run out of at Eglin AFB in Florida’s panhandle.
“Vought's Regulus II was a Mach 2 capable cruise missile optimized for launch from surfaced submarines and other Navy surface vessels, and later served as a high-speed target drone for other weapon development programs,” company literature stated.
Byrd’s Chance-Vought Aircraft, later re-named LTV, would become—almost immediately after the JFK assassination—a principal beneficiary of the massive military spending accompanying the growth of American military involvement in the Vietnam War.
General Byrd, of course, was the owner of the Texas School Book Depository in Dallas, where the Warren Commission alleged Lee Harvey Oswald fired the shots which killed President John F. Kennedy.
Byrd also ran the Texas and Louisiana Civil Air Patrol, at the same time cadets Barry Seal and Lee Harvey Oswald were meeting Kennedy assassination conspirator Capt. David Ferrie at a two-week summer camp of the Louisiana Civil Air Patrol at Barksdale Air Force Base in July of 1955.
by Daniel Hopsicker
Source
A fierce war being waged for control of the Venice Municipal Airport has led to the discovery of covert CIA and military operations, dating back to at least 1959, which go well beyond what was previously known to have taken place there.
Operations at the Venice Airport have involved individuals whose names figure prominently in the Kennedy Assassination, for example Texas oilman General D. H. (Harry) Byrd, owner of a defense contractor which in the late 50's and early 60's built and launched Regulus II cruise missiles from the beach directly in front of the Venice Airport in a program run out of at Eglin AFB in Florida’s panhandle.
“Vought's Regulus II was a Mach 2 capable cruise missile optimized for launch from surfaced submarines and other Navy surface vessels, and later served as a high-speed target drone for other weapon development programs,” company literature stated.
Byrd’s Chance-Vought Aircraft, later re-named LTV, would become—almost immediately after the JFK assassination—a principal beneficiary of the massive military spending accompanying the growth of American military involvement in the Vietnam War.
General Byrd, of course, was the owner of the Texas School Book Depository in Dallas, where the Warren Commission alleged Lee Harvey Oswald fired the shots which killed President John F. Kennedy.
Byrd also ran the Texas and Louisiana Civil Air Patrol, at the same time cadets Barry Seal and Lee Harvey Oswald were meeting Kennedy assassination conspirator Capt. David Ferrie at a two-week summer camp of the Louisiana Civil Air Patrol at Barksdale Air Force Base in July of 1955.
Daniel Hopsicker: Welcome to Terrorland
This review is from: Welcome to Terrorland: Mohamed Atta & the 9-11 Cover-up in Florida (Paperback)
By Phillip M. Rose (Wellington, New Zealand) - See all my reviews
This book, perhaps more than any other, will convince hardened 9/11 skeptics that not only was there a conspiracy involving parties in addition to Al-Qaeda, but that the conspiracy included agencies of the US government.
My reason for targeting 9/11 skeptics in my review is simple -- this book presents facts that can all be verified, and does not engage in theories and speculation. The controlled demolition advocates can have their theories debunked, however unconvincingly. The intrepid researchers who attempt to "follow the money", for example the well documented spike in put options on airline stocks before September 11, 2001, are told that such trading anomalies are nothing out of the ordinary. _Welcome to Terrorland_, on the other hand is based on solid on-the-scene reports and interviews with reliable witnesses.
Mr. Hopsicker reveals that the FBI showed a keen interest in the activities surrounding the Venice, FL flight schools immediately after the 9/11 events. Their interest was not in the realm of investigation, however, as they seemed to have a good grasp of the situation before they came. Their interest was in confiscating evidence, intimidating witnesses, and creating a story about Mohammed Atta that was demonstrably false. Two main facets of the government's Mohammed Atta mythology were that Atta left the Florida West coast in late 2000, never to return, and that he "slipped into the USA unnoticed by authorities". Many credible local witnesses confirm that these are among the many bogus assertions put forth by authorities.
While many people know or at least suspect that the official 9/11 myth is preposterous, they cannot bring themselves to confront the truly frightening concept that their government could participate in a project that led to mass murder, the subsequent murder of a half million Iraqis notwithstanding. The successful disinformation campaigns that have severely weakened the 9/11 Truth Movement provide the skeptical and the fearful with ammunition for the former and excuses for the latter.
Probably the best way for some people to chip away at their fear and/or skepticism is to take a small but important and well-documented piece of the puzzle like _Welcome to Terrorland_, and educate themselves with it. To the fearful who read this book, I believe your fear will turn to anger and a desire to know more about the US government's 9/11 coverup. To the skeptical, please do read the entire book before closing your mind to the possibility that US government agencies could engage in criminal activity on US soil, including obfuscation and witness intimidation, and other more lethal activities.
Updates to the information provided in this book are found on Mr. Hopsicker's excellent website, which is not hard to find.
By Phillip M. Rose (Wellington, New Zealand) - See all my reviews
This book, perhaps more than any other, will convince hardened 9/11 skeptics that not only was there a conspiracy involving parties in addition to Al-Qaeda, but that the conspiracy included agencies of the US government.
My reason for targeting 9/11 skeptics in my review is simple -- this book presents facts that can all be verified, and does not engage in theories and speculation. The controlled demolition advocates can have their theories debunked, however unconvincingly. The intrepid researchers who attempt to "follow the money", for example the well documented spike in put options on airline stocks before September 11, 2001, are told that such trading anomalies are nothing out of the ordinary. _Welcome to Terrorland_, on the other hand is based on solid on-the-scene reports and interviews with reliable witnesses.
Mr. Hopsicker reveals that the FBI showed a keen interest in the activities surrounding the Venice, FL flight schools immediately after the 9/11 events. Their interest was not in the realm of investigation, however, as they seemed to have a good grasp of the situation before they came. Their interest was in confiscating evidence, intimidating witnesses, and creating a story about Mohammed Atta that was demonstrably false. Two main facets of the government's Mohammed Atta mythology were that Atta left the Florida West coast in late 2000, never to return, and that he "slipped into the USA unnoticed by authorities". Many credible local witnesses confirm that these are among the many bogus assertions put forth by authorities.
While many people know or at least suspect that the official 9/11 myth is preposterous, they cannot bring themselves to confront the truly frightening concept that their government could participate in a project that led to mass murder, the subsequent murder of a half million Iraqis notwithstanding. The successful disinformation campaigns that have severely weakened the 9/11 Truth Movement provide the skeptical and the fearful with ammunition for the former and excuses for the latter.
Probably the best way for some people to chip away at their fear and/or skepticism is to take a small but important and well-documented piece of the puzzle like _Welcome to Terrorland_, and educate themselves with it. To the fearful who read this book, I believe your fear will turn to anger and a desire to know more about the US government's 9/11 coverup. To the skeptical, please do read the entire book before closing your mind to the possibility that US government agencies could engage in criminal activity on US soil, including obfuscation and witness intimidation, and other more lethal activities.
Updates to the information provided in this book are found on Mr. Hopsicker's excellent website, which is not hard to find.
Autumn 2000: CIA Front Company Leads to Suspicions CIA Is Attempting to Infiltrate Florida Cell
Writing in 2004, veteran British intelligence officer Colonel John Hughes-Wilson will note that, at the same time as hijacker pilots Mohamed Atta and Marwan Alshehhi are learning to fly at Huffmann Aviation in Venice, Florida (see July 6-December 19, 2000), “A CIA front company called Air Caribe was also operating out of the very same hangar at Venice airport.” He will go on to comment that “this highly curious coincidence must inevitably raise some suspicions of just how much the CIA really did know before 9/11. Was the CIA trying to infiltrate and ‘double’ the US-based al-Qaeda cell, in the hope of using it against Osama bin Laden’s organization in the future?” [Hughes-Wilson, 2004, pp. 391] The Air Caribe story is originally broken by investigative reporter Daniel Hopsicker, who will publish a book about Atta’s time in Florida in 2004 (see March 2004).
Link: HistoryCommons
Link: HistoryCommons
Thursday 20 May 2010
Flight 77 passenger list
We are told that there were 64 passengers were on board Flight 77. They count 59, including 6 crew members. We presume they mean 59 passengers and crew, plus 5 Hijackers. There is no Arab name on the list of victims as reported by the media (see Passenger Links below).
The capacity of Flight 77 was 239 passengers, and with 53 passengers aboard, that is an occupancy rate of 23%. The numbers appear very low indeed, thankfully. And so, a lingering question is why the passenger loads on the four planes hijacked in US skies are being described by industry officials as "very, very low."
Many investigators suspect the terrorists at the very least shopped for flights with low passenger loads, making it easier for them -- presumably armed only with knives and box cutters -- to prevent passenger uprisings. ...
"They wanted the numbers to be on their side."
And they were: staggeringly so.
Three of the transcontinental flights departed for the West Coast with at least two thirds of the seats empty. Only 37 of the 182 seats were occupied -- including four by hijackers, at least two in first class -- as United Airlines' Flight 93 left Newark for San Francisco. Through July, airlines in the United States reported flights on average were 71 percent capacity this year.
But this is truly a bizarre passenger list. Well, if you look at the occupations of the passengers of Flight 77, you get a strange feeling that something is wrong with this picture:
For a random collection of passengers, this is a very impressive manifest. We use the results of Killtown's work on the passenger list, which was drawn from the canonical sources of 9/11 victims biographical information on the Internet: the numbers in square brackets are the numbers in Killtown's listing .
* a senior scientist with the US Navy, retired Army. [12] A third-generation physicist whose work at the Navy was so classified that his family knew very little about what he did each day. They don't even know exactly why he was headed to Los Angeles on the doomed American Airlines Flight 77.
* a Boeing engineer in Integrated Defense Systems; he served in the US Air Force for four years, and for the National Security Agency for 14 years. [36]
* a director of program management at Raytheon, US Army (ret.) [28] who helped develop and build anti-radar technology for electronic warfare. Raytheon's website notes that they are leaders in every phase of the Precision Strike kill chain; are the world's leading organization at Missile Defense; provides state-of-the-art technology to detect, protect and respond to terrorism and provide Homeland Defense; and that their technology forms the eyes, ears and brains of Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance systems, from the Predator to the Global Hawk.
* a retired naval aviator who worked for Veridian Corp., a defense contractor, who was working with military aircraft and weapons systems [56] A Navy test pilot who worked on the development of the F18. "He had done a number of black programs -- which means top-secret," said his son. "We were given no details."
* an electrical engineer with defense contractor BAE Systems. [41] largest technical support supplier to the US Navy. BAE Systems is an industry leader in flight control systems, which are present on nearly every US military aircraft. BAE electronic warfare systems such as their jamming system are vital to the US Navy operations.
* 2 Boeing propulsion engineers: a lead Propulsion Engineer and a Project Manager with Boeing Satellite Systems, [32] and a lead engineer for Boeing Satellite Systems. [40]
* a software architect with Lockheed Martin Corp., US Army (ret.). [42] A manager in the systems and software architecture department.
* a Vice President for software development, EMSolutions and retired Lieutenant Commander, Navy. [18] He spent 20 years in the US Navy, where he developed high capacity signal processors, multi-processor application software and innovative signal processing algorithms. EMSolutions maintains a facility security clearance, and has contracts with Ballistic Missile Defense Organization (BMDO) and BAE Systems.
* a technical group manager at Xon Tech, a defense-related research and development firm [46] He previously worked as an engineer at the Naval Research Lab. Also a technical manager of Xon Tech [53].
* a retired Navy Rear Admiral, former Navy pilot, and retired American Airlines pilot. [24]
* a senior executive at the Defense Department. [29] A budget analyst/director of the programming and fiscal economics division who worked at the Pentagon.
* a former Navy electronics technician worked as a Department of Defense contractor with Vrendenburg Co. in Washington [57]
* managing partner and co-founder of Stratin Consulting. and retired Marine Corps Lieutenant and Vietnam War veteran [26]
* a lawyer who had worked with the Navy Judge Advocate General's Corps. [49]
* and of course, there was Barbara Olson, attorney, CNN Commentator and wife of the United States Solicitor General. [39]
The odds against this being a random group of 53 American Airlines passengers are simply astronomical! There are more top secret security clearances here than in most medium-sized cities in America.
Especially astounding in this bizarre passenger list is the preponderance of Navy personnel amongst the 4 armed services, and the tilt toward propulsion and guidance systems amongst all of the possible secret technologies. It's almost as if someone put this list together thinking that Navy personnel were expendable - or needed to be expended.
This looks like a charter flight for the military-industrial complex; it's almost as if this plane should have taken off from the Pentagon, rather than supposedly crashing into it.
The capacity of Flight 77 was 239 passengers, and with 53 passengers aboard, that is an occupancy rate of 23%. The numbers appear very low indeed, thankfully. And so, a lingering question is why the passenger loads on the four planes hijacked in US skies are being described by industry officials as "very, very low."
Many investigators suspect the terrorists at the very least shopped for flights with low passenger loads, making it easier for them -- presumably armed only with knives and box cutters -- to prevent passenger uprisings. ...
"They wanted the numbers to be on their side."
And they were: staggeringly so.
Three of the transcontinental flights departed for the West Coast with at least two thirds of the seats empty. Only 37 of the 182 seats were occupied -- including four by hijackers, at least two in first class -- as United Airlines' Flight 93 left Newark for San Francisco. Through July, airlines in the United States reported flights on average were 71 percent capacity this year.
But this is truly a bizarre passenger list. Well, if you look at the occupations of the passengers of Flight 77, you get a strange feeling that something is wrong with this picture:
For a random collection of passengers, this is a very impressive manifest. We use the results of Killtown's work on the passenger list, which was drawn from the canonical sources of 9/11 victims biographical information on the Internet: the numbers in square brackets are the numbers in Killtown's listing .
* a senior scientist with the US Navy, retired Army. [12] A third-generation physicist whose work at the Navy was so classified that his family knew very little about what he did each day. They don't even know exactly why he was headed to Los Angeles on the doomed American Airlines Flight 77.
* a Boeing engineer in Integrated Defense Systems; he served in the US Air Force for four years, and for the National Security Agency for 14 years. [36]
* a director of program management at Raytheon, US Army (ret.) [28] who helped develop and build anti-radar technology for electronic warfare. Raytheon's website notes that they are leaders in every phase of the Precision Strike kill chain; are the world's leading organization at Missile Defense; provides state-of-the-art technology to detect, protect and respond to terrorism and provide Homeland Defense; and that their technology forms the eyes, ears and brains of Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance systems, from the Predator to the Global Hawk.
* a retired naval aviator who worked for Veridian Corp., a defense contractor, who was working with military aircraft and weapons systems [56] A Navy test pilot who worked on the development of the F18. "He had done a number of black programs -- which means top-secret," said his son. "We were given no details."
* an electrical engineer with defense contractor BAE Systems. [41] largest technical support supplier to the US Navy. BAE Systems is an industry leader in flight control systems, which are present on nearly every US military aircraft. BAE electronic warfare systems such as their jamming system are vital to the US Navy operations.
* 2 Boeing propulsion engineers: a lead Propulsion Engineer and a Project Manager with Boeing Satellite Systems, [32] and a lead engineer for Boeing Satellite Systems. [40]
* a software architect with Lockheed Martin Corp., US Army (ret.). [42] A manager in the systems and software architecture department.
* a Vice President for software development, EMSolutions and retired Lieutenant Commander, Navy. [18] He spent 20 years in the US Navy, where he developed high capacity signal processors, multi-processor application software and innovative signal processing algorithms. EMSolutions maintains a facility security clearance, and has contracts with Ballistic Missile Defense Organization (BMDO) and BAE Systems.
* a technical group manager at Xon Tech, a defense-related research and development firm [46] He previously worked as an engineer at the Naval Research Lab. Also a technical manager of Xon Tech [53].
* a retired Navy Rear Admiral, former Navy pilot, and retired American Airlines pilot. [24]
* a senior executive at the Defense Department. [29] A budget analyst/director of the programming and fiscal economics division who worked at the Pentagon.
* a former Navy electronics technician worked as a Department of Defense contractor with Vrendenburg Co. in Washington [57]
* managing partner and co-founder of Stratin Consulting. and retired Marine Corps Lieutenant and Vietnam War veteran [26]
* a lawyer who had worked with the Navy Judge Advocate General's Corps. [49]
* and of course, there was Barbara Olson, attorney, CNN Commentator and wife of the United States Solicitor General. [39]
The odds against this being a random group of 53 American Airlines passengers are simply astronomical! There are more top secret security clearances here than in most medium-sized cities in America.
Especially astounding in this bizarre passenger list is the preponderance of Navy personnel amongst the 4 armed services, and the tilt toward propulsion and guidance systems amongst all of the possible secret technologies. It's almost as if someone put this list together thinking that Navy personnel were expendable - or needed to be expended.
This looks like a charter flight for the military-industrial complex; it's almost as if this plane should have taken off from the Pentagon, rather than supposedly crashing into it.
US military budget 2011: One Trillion Dollars
Since 2000 the US military budget has risen 9% per year. This coincided with the 'War on Terror' and invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. The question is, what would beneficiaries of such an incredible budget be prepared to see happen in order to ensure that this budget was never cut?
US gross domestic product 2009 $14,256,275,000,000 or $14 trillion. So one out of 14 $ earned in the US that year went to military related spending.
Including non-DOD expenditures, defense spending was approximately 25–29% of budgeted expenditures and 38–44% of estimated tax revenues. According to the Congressional Budget Office, defense spending grew 9% annually on average from fiscal year 2000–2009.
Is it surprising that millions of Americans want to 'take back their government'? Surely since Roman or Medieval times state expenditure on the military has not been so high as a proportion of spending.
Budget Breakdown for 2011
Defense-related expenditure↓ 2011 Budget request & Mandatory spending[1][15]↓ Calculation[6][16]↓
DOD spending $721.3 billion Base budget + "Overseas Contingency Operations"
FBI counter-terrorism $2.7 billion At least one-third FBI budget.
International Affairs $10.1–$54.2 billion At minimum, foreign arms sales. At most, entire State budget
Energy Department, defense-related $20.9 billion
Veterans Affairs $66.2 billion
Homeland Security $54.7 billion
NASA, satellites $3.4–$8.5 billion Between 20% and 50% of NASA's total budget
Veterans pensions $58.4 billion
Other defense-related mandatory spending $7.5 billion
Interest on debt incurred in past wars $57.7–$228.1 billion Between 23% and 91% of total interest
Total Spending $1.003–$1.223 trillion
The 2009 U.S. military budget is almost as much as the rest of the world's defense spending combined and is over nine times larger than the military budget of China.
For 2011
The U.S. Department of Defense budget accounted in fiscal year 2010 for about 19% of the United States federal budgeted expenditures and 28% of estimated tax revenues.
Because of constitutional limitations, military funding is appropriated in a discretionary spending account. (Such accounts permit government planners to have more flexibility to change spending each year, as opposed to mandatory spending accounts that mandate spending on programs in accordance with the law, outside of the budgetary process.) In recent years, discretionary spending as a whole has amounted to about one-third of total federal outlays.[20] Military funding's share of discretionary funding was 50.5% in 2003, and has risen steadily ever since.[21]
For FY 2010, Department of Defense spending amounts to 4.7% of GDP.
US gross domestic product 2009 $14,256,275,000,000 or $14 trillion. So one out of 14 $ earned in the US that year went to military related spending.
Including non-DOD expenditures, defense spending was approximately 25–29% of budgeted expenditures and 38–44% of estimated tax revenues. According to the Congressional Budget Office, defense spending grew 9% annually on average from fiscal year 2000–2009.
Is it surprising that millions of Americans want to 'take back their government'? Surely since Roman or Medieval times state expenditure on the military has not been so high as a proportion of spending.
Budget Breakdown for 2011
Defense-related expenditure↓ 2011 Budget request & Mandatory spending[1][15]↓ Calculation[6][16]↓
DOD spending $721.3 billion Base budget + "Overseas Contingency Operations"
FBI counter-terrorism $2.7 billion At least one-third FBI budget.
International Affairs $10.1–$54.2 billion At minimum, foreign arms sales. At most, entire State budget
Energy Department, defense-related $20.9 billion
Veterans Affairs $66.2 billion
Homeland Security $54.7 billion
NASA, satellites $3.4–$8.5 billion Between 20% and 50% of NASA's total budget
Veterans pensions $58.4 billion
Other defense-related mandatory spending $7.5 billion
Interest on debt incurred in past wars $57.7–$228.1 billion Between 23% and 91% of total interest
Total Spending $1.003–$1.223 trillion
The 2009 U.S. military budget is almost as much as the rest of the world's defense spending combined and is over nine times larger than the military budget of China.
For 2011
The U.S. Department of Defense budget accounted in fiscal year 2010 for about 19% of the United States federal budgeted expenditures and 28% of estimated tax revenues.
Because of constitutional limitations, military funding is appropriated in a discretionary spending account. (Such accounts permit government planners to have more flexibility to change spending each year, as opposed to mandatory spending accounts that mandate spending on programs in accordance with the law, outside of the budgetary process.) In recent years, discretionary spending as a whole has amounted to about one-third of total federal outlays.[20] Military funding's share of discretionary funding was 50.5% in 2003, and has risen steadily ever since.[21]
For FY 2010, Department of Defense spending amounts to 4.7% of GDP.
Bin Laden's US links in Central Asia up to 911
In the interview, Sibel Edmonds says that the US maintained ‘intimate relations’ with Bin Laden, and the Taliban, “all the way until that day of September 11.”
These ‘intimate relations’ included using Bin Laden for ‘operations’ in Central Asia, including Xinjiang, China. These ‘operations’ involved using al Qaeda and the Taliban in the same manner “as we did during the Afghan and Soviet conflict,” that is, fighting ‘enemies’ via proxies.
As Sibel has previously described, and as she reiterates in this latest interview, this process involved using Turkey (with assistance from ‘actors from Pakistan, and Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia’) as a proxy, which in turn used Bin Laden and the Taliban and others as a proxy terrorist army.
Control of Central Asia
The goals of the American ’statesmen’ directing these activities included control of Central Asia’s vast energy supplies and new markets for military products.
The Americans had a problem, though. They needed to keep their fingerprints off these operations to avoid a) popular revolt in Central Asia ( Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan), and b) serious repercussions from China and Russia. They found an ingenious solution: Use their puppet-state Turkey as a proxy, and appeal to both pan-Turkic and pan-Islam sensibilities.
Turkey, a NATO ally, has a lot more credibility in the region than the US and, with the history of the Ottoman Empire, could appeal to pan-Turkic dreams of a wider sphere of influence. The majority of the Central Asian population shares the same heritage, language and religion as the Turks.
In turn, the Turks used the Taliban and al Qaeda, appealing to their dreams of a pan-Islamic caliphate (Presumably. Or maybe the Turks/US just paid very well.)
According to Sibel:
This started more than a decade-long illegal, covert operation in Central Asia by a small group in the US intent on furthering the oil industry and the Military Industrial Complex, using Turkish operatives, Saudi partners and Pakistani allies, furthering this objective in the name of Islam.
Uighurs
Sibel was recently asked to write about the recent situation with the Uighurs in Xinjiang, but she declined, apart from saying that “our fingerprint is all over it.”
Of course, Sibel isn’t the first or only person to recognize any of this. Eric Margolis, one of the best reporters in the West on matters of Central Asia, stated that the Uighurs in the training camps in Afghanistan up to 2001:
“were being trained by Bin Laden to go and fight the communist Chinese in Xinjiang, and this was not only with the knowledge, but with the support of the CIA, because they thought they might use them if war ever broke out with China.”
And also that:
“Afghanistan was not a hotbed of terrorism, these were commando groups, guerrilla groups, being trained for specific purposes in Central Asia.”
In a separate interview, Margolis said:
“That illustrates Henry Kissinger’s bon mot that the only thing more dangerous than being America’s enemy is being an ally, because these people were paid by the CIA, they were armed by the US, these Chinese Muslims from Xinjiang, the most-Western province.
The CIA was going to use them in the event of a war with China, or just to raise hell there, and they were trained and supported out of Afghanistan, some of them with Osama Bin Laden’s collaboration. The Americans were up to their ears with this.”
Chechnya, Albania & Kosovo
Central Asia is not the only place where American foreign policy makers have shared interests with Bin Laden. Consider the war in Chechnya. As I documented here, Richard Perle and Stephen Solarz (both in Sibel’s gallery) joined other leading neocon luminaries such as Elliott Abrams, Kenneth Adelman, Frank Gaffney, Michael Ledeen, James Woolsey, and Morton Abramowitz in a group called the American Committee for Peace in Chechnya (ACPC). For his part, Bin Laden donated $25 million to the cause, as well as numerous fighters, and technical expertise, establishing training camps.
US interests also converged with those of al-Qaeda in Kosovo and Albania.
Of course, it is not uncommon for circumstances to arise where ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend.’ On the other hand, in a transparent democracy, we expect a full accounting of the circumstances leading up to a tragic event like 9/11. The 9/11 Commission was supposed to provide exactly that.
State Secrets
Sibel has famously been dubbed the most gagged woman in America, having the State Secrets Privilege imposed on her twice. Her 3.5 hour testimony to the 9/11 Commission has been entirely suppressed, reduced to a single footnote which refers readers to her classified testimony.
In the interview, she says that the information that was classified in her case specifically identifies that the US was using Bin Laden and the Taliban in Central Asia, including Xinjiang. In the interview, Sibel reiterates that when invoking the gag orders, the US government claims that it is protecting ” ’sensitive diplomatic relations,’ protecting Turkey, protecting Israel, protecting Pakistan, protecting Saudi Arabia…” This is no doubt partially true, but it is also true that they are protecting themselves too, and it is a crime in the US to use classification and secrecy to cover up crimes.
As Sibel says in the interview:
I have information about things that our government has lied to us about… those things can be proven as lies, very easily, based on the information they classified in my case, because we did carry very intimate relationship with these people, and it involves Central Asia, all the way up to September 11.
Summary
The bombshell here is obviously that certain people in the US were using Bin Laden up to September 11, 2001.
These ‘intimate relations’ included using Bin Laden for ‘operations’ in Central Asia, including Xinjiang, China. These ‘operations’ involved using al Qaeda and the Taliban in the same manner “as we did during the Afghan and Soviet conflict,” that is, fighting ‘enemies’ via proxies.
As Sibel has previously described, and as she reiterates in this latest interview, this process involved using Turkey (with assistance from ‘actors from Pakistan, and Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia’) as a proxy, which in turn used Bin Laden and the Taliban and others as a proxy terrorist army.
Control of Central Asia
The goals of the American ’statesmen’ directing these activities included control of Central Asia’s vast energy supplies and new markets for military products.
The Americans had a problem, though. They needed to keep their fingerprints off these operations to avoid a) popular revolt in Central Asia ( Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan), and b) serious repercussions from China and Russia. They found an ingenious solution: Use their puppet-state Turkey as a proxy, and appeal to both pan-Turkic and pan-Islam sensibilities.
Turkey, a NATO ally, has a lot more credibility in the region than the US and, with the history of the Ottoman Empire, could appeal to pan-Turkic dreams of a wider sphere of influence. The majority of the Central Asian population shares the same heritage, language and religion as the Turks.
In turn, the Turks used the Taliban and al Qaeda, appealing to their dreams of a pan-Islamic caliphate (Presumably. Or maybe the Turks/US just paid very well.)
According to Sibel:
This started more than a decade-long illegal, covert operation in Central Asia by a small group in the US intent on furthering the oil industry and the Military Industrial Complex, using Turkish operatives, Saudi partners and Pakistani allies, furthering this objective in the name of Islam.
Uighurs
Sibel was recently asked to write about the recent situation with the Uighurs in Xinjiang, but she declined, apart from saying that “our fingerprint is all over it.”
Of course, Sibel isn’t the first or only person to recognize any of this. Eric Margolis, one of the best reporters in the West on matters of Central Asia, stated that the Uighurs in the training camps in Afghanistan up to 2001:
“were being trained by Bin Laden to go and fight the communist Chinese in Xinjiang, and this was not only with the knowledge, but with the support of the CIA, because they thought they might use them if war ever broke out with China.”
And also that:
“Afghanistan was not a hotbed of terrorism, these were commando groups, guerrilla groups, being trained for specific purposes in Central Asia.”
In a separate interview, Margolis said:
“That illustrates Henry Kissinger’s bon mot that the only thing more dangerous than being America’s enemy is being an ally, because these people were paid by the CIA, they were armed by the US, these Chinese Muslims from Xinjiang, the most-Western province.
The CIA was going to use them in the event of a war with China, or just to raise hell there, and they were trained and supported out of Afghanistan, some of them with Osama Bin Laden’s collaboration. The Americans were up to their ears with this.”
Chechnya, Albania & Kosovo
Central Asia is not the only place where American foreign policy makers have shared interests with Bin Laden. Consider the war in Chechnya. As I documented here, Richard Perle and Stephen Solarz (both in Sibel’s gallery) joined other leading neocon luminaries such as Elliott Abrams, Kenneth Adelman, Frank Gaffney, Michael Ledeen, James Woolsey, and Morton Abramowitz in a group called the American Committee for Peace in Chechnya (ACPC). For his part, Bin Laden donated $25 million to the cause, as well as numerous fighters, and technical expertise, establishing training camps.
US interests also converged with those of al-Qaeda in Kosovo and Albania.
Of course, it is not uncommon for circumstances to arise where ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend.’ On the other hand, in a transparent democracy, we expect a full accounting of the circumstances leading up to a tragic event like 9/11. The 9/11 Commission was supposed to provide exactly that.
State Secrets
Sibel has famously been dubbed the most gagged woman in America, having the State Secrets Privilege imposed on her twice. Her 3.5 hour testimony to the 9/11 Commission has been entirely suppressed, reduced to a single footnote which refers readers to her classified testimony.
In the interview, she says that the information that was classified in her case specifically identifies that the US was using Bin Laden and the Taliban in Central Asia, including Xinjiang. In the interview, Sibel reiterates that when invoking the gag orders, the US government claims that it is protecting ” ’sensitive diplomatic relations,’ protecting Turkey, protecting Israel, protecting Pakistan, protecting Saudi Arabia…” This is no doubt partially true, but it is also true that they are protecting themselves too, and it is a crime in the US to use classification and secrecy to cover up crimes.
As Sibel says in the interview:
I have information about things that our government has lied to us about… those things can be proven as lies, very easily, based on the information they classified in my case, because we did carry very intimate relationship with these people, and it involves Central Asia, all the way up to September 11.
Summary
The bombshell here is obviously that certain people in the US were using Bin Laden up to September 11, 2001.
Wednesday 19 May 2010
Atta lived with 2 Pakistani airforce pilots in Germany before 911
From HistoryCommons.org
Hijacker Marwan Alshehhi moved to Bonn, Germany in 1996, and studied German there. He then lived in Hamburg for several months in 1998, and returned to Bonn after failing a language exam. Just as he leaves town, a Pakistani student named Atif bin Mansour arrives in Hamburg, and begins living and studying together with Mohamed Atta. Early in 1999, Mansour applies with Atta for a room to hold a new Islamic study group. Mansour is a pilot on leave from the Pakistani Air Force. As the Los Angeles Times puts it, “This in itself is intriguing—a Pakistani pilot? Investigators acknowledge they haven’t figured out Mansour’s role in the plot, if any.” On this day, Mansour’s brother, also in the Pakistani armed forces, is killed (along with 15 other officers) when his surveillance plane is shot down by India. Mansour returns home and was detained and stopped from returning to Germany. Soon afterwards, Alshehhi returns to Hamburg. According to Mansoor’s father, “Atif was detained because he had not sought permission from the authorities before returning home to attend his younger brother’s funeral.” Then he is set free with assistance from a relative and works on Pakistani air force base. Contacted on his mobile phone by a reporter, Mansour says, “I won’t be able to speak further on such a sensitive issue.” [Rediff, 7/17/2002; Los Angeles Times, 9/1/2002; Washington Post, 9/11/2002] In March 2001, Mohamed Atta applies together with a Pakistani Air Force pilot for a security job with Lufthansa Airlines (see February 15, 2001). This pilot is a member of the same Islamic study group as Mansour, but it’s not clear if this is Mansour and he did come back to or stay in Germany, or if Atta was associating with a second Pakistani Air Force pilot. [Roth, 2001, pp. 9f; Newsday, 1/24/2002] The FBI later notes that Alshehhi arrived “almost as a replacement” for Mansour. After 9/11, the FBI asks Pakistan if the flight lieutenant and squad leader Mansour can be found and questioned about any possible role he may have had in the 9/11 plot, but there’s no indication Pakistan as to whether has ever agreed to this request. [Rediff, 7/17/2002] In late 2002, the German Federal Bureau of Criminal Investigations will say that Mansour remains “a very interesting figure.” [Los Angeles Times, 9/1/2002]
Hijacker Marwan Alshehhi moved to Bonn, Germany in 1996, and studied German there. He then lived in Hamburg for several months in 1998, and returned to Bonn after failing a language exam. Just as he leaves town, a Pakistani student named Atif bin Mansour arrives in Hamburg, and begins living and studying together with Mohamed Atta. Early in 1999, Mansour applies with Atta for a room to hold a new Islamic study group. Mansour is a pilot on leave from the Pakistani Air Force. As the Los Angeles Times puts it, “This in itself is intriguing—a Pakistani pilot? Investigators acknowledge they haven’t figured out Mansour’s role in the plot, if any.” On this day, Mansour’s brother, also in the Pakistani armed forces, is killed (along with 15 other officers) when his surveillance plane is shot down by India. Mansour returns home and was detained and stopped from returning to Germany. Soon afterwards, Alshehhi returns to Hamburg. According to Mansoor’s father, “Atif was detained because he had not sought permission from the authorities before returning home to attend his younger brother’s funeral.” Then he is set free with assistance from a relative and works on Pakistani air force base. Contacted on his mobile phone by a reporter, Mansour says, “I won’t be able to speak further on such a sensitive issue.” [Rediff, 7/17/2002; Los Angeles Times, 9/1/2002; Washington Post, 9/11/2002] In March 2001, Mohamed Atta applies together with a Pakistani Air Force pilot for a security job with Lufthansa Airlines (see February 15, 2001). This pilot is a member of the same Islamic study group as Mansour, but it’s not clear if this is Mansour and he did come back to or stay in Germany, or if Atta was associating with a second Pakistani Air Force pilot. [Roth, 2001, pp. 9f; Newsday, 1/24/2002] The FBI later notes that Alshehhi arrived “almost as a replacement” for Mansour. After 9/11, the FBI asks Pakistan if the flight lieutenant and squad leader Mansour can be found and questioned about any possible role he may have had in the 9/11 plot, but there’s no indication Pakistan as to whether has ever agreed to this request. [Rediff, 7/17/2002] In late 2002, the German Federal Bureau of Criminal Investigations will say that Mansour remains “a very interesting figure.” [Los Angeles Times, 9/1/2002]
Who funded the hijackers?
And there is credible evidence on funding for the 911 hijackers.
1998: Atta Possibly Trains at Base Conducting Pilotless Aircraft Exercises
Link
A military report released this year describes the “Joint Vision 2010” program, a series of “analyses, war games, studies, experiments, and exercises” which are “investigating new operational concepts, doctrines, and organizational approaches that will enable US forces to maintain full spectrum dominance of the battlespace well into the 21st century.” “The Air Force has begun a series of war games entitled Global Engagement at the Air War College, Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama.” The same report mentions that the military is working on a “variety of new imaging and signals intelligence sensors, currently in advanced stages of development, deployed aboard the Global Hawk, DarkStar, and Predator unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs)…” [US Department of Defense, 1998] Global Hawk is a technology that enables pilotless flight and has been functioning since at least early 1997. [US Department of Defense, 2/20/1997] While it may be mere coincidence, “Air Force spokesman Colonel Ken McClellan said a man named Mohamed Atta—which the FBI has identified as one of the five hijackers of American Airlines Flight 11—had once attended the International Officer’s School at Maxwell/Gunter Air Force Base in Montgomery, Ala.” But he adds that “there [was] discrepancies in the biographical data” (mainly the birth date) and that “it may just be a case of mistaken identity” (see also 1996-August 2000 and September 15-17, 2001) [Gannett News Service, 9/17/2001; Gannett News Service, 9/20/2001]
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, 3/3/02: "There are many in Musharraf's government who believe that Saeed Sheikh's power comes not from the ISI, but from his connections with our own CIA. The theory is that with such intense pressure to locate bin Laden, Saeed Sheikh was bought and paid for."
1998: Atta Possibly Trains at Base Conducting Pilotless Aircraft Exercises
Link
A military report released this year describes the “Joint Vision 2010” program, a series of “analyses, war games, studies, experiments, and exercises” which are “investigating new operational concepts, doctrines, and organizational approaches that will enable US forces to maintain full spectrum dominance of the battlespace well into the 21st century.” “The Air Force has begun a series of war games entitled Global Engagement at the Air War College, Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama.” The same report mentions that the military is working on a “variety of new imaging and signals intelligence sensors, currently in advanced stages of development, deployed aboard the Global Hawk, DarkStar, and Predator unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs)…” [US Department of Defense, 1998] Global Hawk is a technology that enables pilotless flight and has been functioning since at least early 1997. [US Department of Defense, 2/20/1997] While it may be mere coincidence, “Air Force spokesman Colonel Ken McClellan said a man named Mohamed Atta—which the FBI has identified as one of the five hijackers of American Airlines Flight 11—had once attended the International Officer’s School at Maxwell/Gunter Air Force Base in Montgomery, Ala.” But he adds that “there [was] discrepancies in the biographical data” (mainly the birth date) and that “it may just be a case of mistaken identity” (see also 1996-August 2000 and September 15-17, 2001) [Gannett News Service, 9/17/2001; Gannett News Service, 9/20/2001]
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, 3/3/02: "There are many in Musharraf's government who believe that Saeed Sheikh's power comes not from the ISI, but from his connections with our own CIA. The theory is that with such intense pressure to locate bin Laden, Saeed Sheikh was bought and paid for."
911 Pilots - the history of Venice airport, Florida
Does this strike you as a smoking gun kind of odd?
The airport where three of the four terrorist pilots in the 9/11 attack learned to fly was a hub of operations in the 1970’s and early ‘80’s for “The Company,” an international drug smuggling organization headquartered in Lexington, Kentucky and Mena, Arkansas.
Led by a mysterious Cuban exile, who used the alias “Frank Guzman,” The Company’s contingent at the Venice Airport numbered as many as a dozen pilots and associates. The Company began receiving national attention in the early 1980’s.
“The Company,” whose name is a commonly-used euphemism for the CIA, was profiled in Sally Denton’s best-selling book “The Blue-Grass Conspiracy,” which raised pointed questions about the involvement of the CIA with the group.
The 60-year secret history of covert CIA and military operations at the Venice Municipal Airport now coming to light goes well beyond anything previously known to have taken place there.
The official story of the 9/11 attack goes like this:
"The arrival of Atta’s terrorist cadre at the Venice Municipal Airport was happenstance, and the terrorist’s presence there an accident of history, unrelated to any pre-existing climate of crime or corruption."
Once again, and emphatically: Nothing could be further from the truth.
The airport where three of the four terrorist pilots in the 9/11 attack learned to fly was a hub of operations in the 1970’s and early ‘80’s for “The Company,” an international drug smuggling organization headquartered in Lexington, Kentucky and Mena, Arkansas.
Led by a mysterious Cuban exile, who used the alias “Frank Guzman,” The Company’s contingent at the Venice Airport numbered as many as a dozen pilots and associates. The Company began receiving national attention in the early 1980’s.
“The Company,” whose name is a commonly-used euphemism for the CIA, was profiled in Sally Denton’s best-selling book “The Blue-Grass Conspiracy,” which raised pointed questions about the involvement of the CIA with the group.
The 60-year secret history of covert CIA and military operations at the Venice Municipal Airport now coming to light goes well beyond anything previously known to have taken place there.
The official story of the 9/11 attack goes like this:
"The arrival of Atta’s terrorist cadre at the Venice Municipal Airport was happenstance, and the terrorist’s presence there an accident of history, unrelated to any pre-existing climate of crime or corruption."
Once again, and emphatically: Nothing could be further from the truth.
Cuts - good or bad?
Here is my comment on an article by union leader Mark Serwotka, who earned the wrath of the commenters at Cif.
I don't know whether the comments here represent Guardian readers, Daily Mail readers or just Tory voters who have nowhere better to go. Mark Serwotka is one of the most articulate and effective union leaders in the country. But clearly he has his work cut out!
Some cuts are inevitable, but there is a political and economic point here that all these brutalist cut it to the bone commenters fail to see. How did you decide that public sector job = wasteful, and private sector job = useful? Is a housing officer obviously less useful than a banker or a management consultant? Just because a company exists and makes money does not make its activities necessarily useful to society. I would have thought that the crisis of the last 3 years shows that capitalist business chases the money. If I am a banker and I make £1 million a year by deals which may actually damage other companies or individuals, and I spend a third of that on frivolous nonsense provided by service companies, will the transfer of that £1m into 'useless' public sector jobs decrease or increase social welfare? Oh sorry, I forgot, all that matters is how much tax I pay, who cares about society?
If the size of the public sector debt is inverse proportion to the proper allocation of resources in the economy, then presumably Equatorial Guinea is the most virtuous economy on the planet, because,as the CIA table shows, it has so little public debt and presumably an extremely small (efficient?) public sector. If debt gets out of control, we end up as Zimbabwe. But simply cutting debt is not a panacea - it depends what kind of society you are trying to create. Nearly all the countries with very low debt to GDP ratios are poor (NIgeria, Cameroon anyone?). Of the indebted ones, half are rich. So debt levels tell you nothing about social development, other than countries with very low debt levels are all poor unless they have oil!
All these commentators are suffering from an outbreak of ideological fury based on decades of propaganda against public sector and assertions about waste that ignore what massive cuts in public sector jobs will do to the social infrastructure. The answer is massive poverty and the creation of urban wastelands of the sort you find in US inner cities. Be careful, you may get what you wish for.
I don't know whether the comments here represent Guardian readers, Daily Mail readers or just Tory voters who have nowhere better to go. Mark Serwotka is one of the most articulate and effective union leaders in the country. But clearly he has his work cut out!
Some cuts are inevitable, but there is a political and economic point here that all these brutalist cut it to the bone commenters fail to see. How did you decide that public sector job = wasteful, and private sector job = useful? Is a housing officer obviously less useful than a banker or a management consultant? Just because a company exists and makes money does not make its activities necessarily useful to society. I would have thought that the crisis of the last 3 years shows that capitalist business chases the money. If I am a banker and I make £1 million a year by deals which may actually damage other companies or individuals, and I spend a third of that on frivolous nonsense provided by service companies, will the transfer of that £1m into 'useless' public sector jobs decrease or increase social welfare? Oh sorry, I forgot, all that matters is how much tax I pay, who cares about society?
If the size of the public sector debt is inverse proportion to the proper allocation of resources in the economy, then presumably Equatorial Guinea is the most virtuous economy on the planet, because,as the CIA table shows, it has so little public debt and presumably an extremely small (efficient?) public sector. If debt gets out of control, we end up as Zimbabwe. But simply cutting debt is not a panacea - it depends what kind of society you are trying to create. Nearly all the countries with very low debt to GDP ratios are poor (NIgeria, Cameroon anyone?). Of the indebted ones, half are rich. So debt levels tell you nothing about social development, other than countries with very low debt levels are all poor unless they have oil!
All these commentators are suffering from an outbreak of ideological fury based on decades of propaganda against public sector and assertions about waste that ignore what massive cuts in public sector jobs will do to the social infrastructure. The answer is massive poverty and the creation of urban wastelands of the sort you find in US inner cities. Be careful, you may get what you wish for.
Monday 17 May 2010
The Pakistan connection
There is evidence of foreign intelligence backing for the 9/11 hijackers. Why is the US government so keen to cover it up? By British politician Michael Meacher
Sunday 16 May 2010
Did Pakistan's ISI fund 911 leader Atta?
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/KI11Ak02.html
Exert from http://www.cassiopaea.org/cass/mahmoud_ahmed.htm
Also from http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO206A.html
Schedule of Pakistan's Chief of Military Intelligence Lt. General Mahmoud Ahmad, Washington, 4-13 September 2001
Summer 2001: ISI Chief Lt. General Mahmoud Ahmad transfers $100,000 to 9-11 Ringleader Mohamed Atta.
4 September: Ahmad arrives in the US on an official visit.
4-9 September: He meets his US counterparts including CIA Head George Tenet.
9 September: Assassination of General Massood, leader of the Northern Alliance. Official statement by Northern Alliance points to involvement of the ISI-Osama-Taliban axis.
11 September: Terrorist Attacks on the WTC and the Pentagon. At the time of the attacks, Lt General Ahmad was at a breakfast meeting at the Capitol with the chairmen of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees Sen Bob Graham and Rep Porter Goss. Also present at the meeting were Sen. John Kyl and the Pakistani ambassador to the U.S., Maleeha Lodhi.
12-13 September: Meetings between Lt. General Ahmad and Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage. Agreement on Pakistan's collaboration negotiated between Ahmad and Armitage. Meeting between General Ahmad and Secretary of State Colin Powell
13 September: Ahmad meets Senator Joseph Biden, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Which brings us back to General Mahmoud Ahmad having breakfast with Bob Graham and others on the morning of 9-11.
On May 16, shortly after the New York Post bomb was dropped, Michel Chossudovsky informs us that Condoleezza Rice held a press conference to address the issue. At this press conference something very interesting happened: an Indian journalist asked Ms. Rice a question and in the public transcripts of this interview, it went as follows:
Q: Are you aware of the reports at the time that (inaudible) was in Washinton on September 11. And on September 10, $100,000 was wired from Pakistan to these groups here in thie area? And while he was here, was he meeting with you or anybody in the administration?
Rice: I have not seen that report, and he was certainly not meeting with me.
Now, what was excluded in the publicly released transcripts of this press conference? What was actually IN those brackets where we see the word "inaudible"?
Here is the copy of the Federal News Service, May 16, 2002, Special White House Briefing:
Q: Are you aware of the reports at the time that THE ISI CHIEF was in Washington...
Back up now - feets don't fail me - this is a real clue here and we have Michel Chossudovsky to thank for this one.
WHY is this being hidden by the media? WHY is the designation of the individual who was in Washington being covered up in this stupid little gaffe - this "(inaudible)" when it was clearly audible and heard by others and recorded?
WHO is being concealed?
The ISI Chief: General Mahmoud Ahmad of Pakistan. Remember our little collection of FACTS from Michel Chossudovsky?
1) The purported 9-11 ringleader - Mohammed Atta - according to ABC news, was financed by "unnamed sources in Pakistan." According to Agence France Presse and the Times of India, an official Indian intelligence report informs us that the 9-11 attacks were funded by money wired to Mohammed Atta from Pakistan, by Ahmad Umar Sheikh, under orders from Pakistani intelligence chief General Mahmoud Ahmad. The report said: "The evidence we have supplied to the U.S. is of a much wider range and depth than just one piece of paper linking a rogue general to some misplaced act of terrorism."
2) General Mahmoud Ahmad was in the U.S. on September 11. He arrived on the 4th on a "routine visit." It was confirmed by news sources that Ahmad met with a number of U.S. officials.
Colin Powell,
Richard Armitage,
Marc Grossman,
CIA Director George Tenet,
Senator Bob Graham, chairman of Senate Intelligence Committee,
Senator John Kyl, Senate Intelligence Committee,
Rep. Porter Goss, Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee,
Senator Joseph Biden, Chariman of Foreign Relations Committee.
And we come back to that most interesting item: On the morning of September 11, General Mahmoud Ahmad was having breakfast with Florida's senator, Bob Graham - chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
Also present at breakfast was Pakistan's ambassador to the U.S. Maleeha Lodhi. There were other members of the Senate and House Intelligence committees present. And that leads us right back to the Oval Office of the White House. Suddenly, all the pieces begin to fall into place.
When the news [of the attacks on the World Trade Center] came, the two Florida lawmakers who lead the House and Senate intelligence committees were having breakfast with the head of the Pakistani intelligence service. Rep. Porter Goss, R-Sanibel, Sen. Bob Graham and other members of the House Intelligence Committee were talking about terrorism issues with the Pakistani official when a member of Goss' staff handed a note to Goss, who handed it to Graham. "We were talking about terrorism, specifically terrorism generated from Afghanistan," Graham said.
Mahmoud Ahmed, director general of Pakistan's intelligence service was "very empathetic, sympathetic to the people of the United States," Graham said.
Goss could not be reached Tuesday. He was whisked away with much of the House leadership to an undisclosed "secure location". Graham, meanwhile, participated in late-afternoon briefings with top officials from the CIA and FBI." [Stuart News Company Press Journal, Vero Beach, FL, September 12, 2001 as quoted by Michel Chossudovsky]
.....In fact, the News of Pakistan reported the visit BEFORE September 11:
ISI Chief Lt. Gen. Mahmoud's week-long presence in Washinton has triggered speculation about the agenda of his mysterious meetings at the Pentagon and National Security Council. Officially, he is on a routine visit in return for CIA Director George Tenet's earlier visit to Islamabad. Official sources confirm that he met Tenet this week. He also held long parleys with unspecified officials at the White House and the Pentagon. But the most important meeting was with Marc Grossman, U.S. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs. One can safely guess that the discussions must have centred around Afghanistan ... and Osama bin Laden. What added interest to his visit is the history of such visits. Last time Ziauddin Butt, Mahmoud's predecessor, was here, during Nawaz Sharif's goernment, the domestic politics turned topsy-turvy within days. [Amir Mateen, News Pakistan, September 10, 2001 as quoted by Michel Chossudovsky]
Nawaz Sharif was overthrown by General Pervez Musharaf. General Mahmoud Ahmad, who became the head of the ISI, played a key role in the military coup. [Michel Chossudovsky]
It was in the news (even if the major media sources deliberately ignored it), so how come Condoleezza Rice didn't know about it?
The existence of an ISI-Osama-Taliban-CIA-US government axis is a matter of public record. However, what was NOT expected - obviously - was the revelation by Indian intelligence - that the $100,000 bux was paid to Mohammed Atta on the orders of the guy having breakfast with Bob Graham - the same guy who was meeting with all the likely conspirators.
The Bush administration's relations with pakistan's ISI - including the week of meetings and "consultations" with General Mahmoud Ahmad prior to September 11 - raise not only the issue of "cover-up" but of DIRECT COMPLICITY. At the very least, this suggests that key individuals within the U.S. military-intelligence establishment knew about the attack in some detail and failed to act. At worst, it suggests that the many irregularities noted about the behavior of Bush and his gang prior to, during, and following the 9-11 attacks were indicative of direct participation in the planning of the events, even to the "piggy-backing" of the drone plane attack on the Pentagon to divert suspicion away from the U.S. military.
What is crystal clear, however, is that this war is not a "campaign against international terrorism." It is a war of conquest with devastating consequences for the future of humanity. and the American people have been consciously and deliberately deceived by their government. [Chossudovsky]
Another interesting note is the comment that the last time the ISI chief of Pakistan was in Washington, the "domestic politics turned topsy turvy within days." Did the CIA help General Pervez Musharraf to overthrow Nawaz Sharif and now the favor was being returned? Just a little matter of the transfer of $100,000 bux - thirty pieces of silver to betray the American people?
Now, let's back up just a short while before the September 11 attack. Michel Chossudovsky reveals that, on September 9, the leader of the Northern Alliance, Commander Ahmad Shah Masood, was assassinated. The Northern Alliance informed the Bush administration that the ISI of Pakistan was implicated in the murder.
However, if you do a web search for articles on this matter, you will find that the Western Media repeatedly says that Masood was assassinated by "Arab militants" - very often specifically naming Al Qaeda.
What is omitted is the official statement: A "Pakistani ISI- Osama - Taliban axis" [was responsible for] plotting the assassination by two Arab suicide bombers. [...] "We believe that this is a triangle between Osama bin Laden, ISI, which is the intelligence section of the Pakistani Army, and the Taliban." [The Northern Alliance Statement released on September 14, 2001, quoted by Reuters News Service on September 15, 2001]
So, the complicity of the ISI in relation to Osama and the Taliban IS a matter of Public Record and is also in the Congressional transcripts.
However, what we see on the surface is that General Mahmoud, the head of the ISI, was having breakfast with Bob Graham in Florida on the morning of September 11, and that a couple of days later - with full awareness of the connections between ISI and Taliban - including the assassination of Masood just two days earlier - the Bush Administration announced that it would "directly cooperate" with Pakistan's ISI. Isn't that just a little bit like asking the fox to watch the henhouse? How did they DO that?
It was simple. The Western Mass Media, in full support of the Bush Reich (as is evident throughout the events of the past 14 months) remained completely silent on the role of Pakistan's ISI, even to the extent of inserting an (inaudible) in the published text of the question asked of Condoleezza Rice on May 16, 2002. It was NOT a coincidence that this question was addressed by an INDIAN journalist. So it was that the cover-up of ISI's position in the Taliban-Osama axis was underway and America declared Pakistan to be the "friend and ally" of America in those dark days following 9-11. And how did they explain it?
U.S. officials had sought cooperation from Pakistan [precisely] because it is the original backer of the Taliban, the hard-line Islamic leadership of Afghanistan accused by Washington of harboring bin Laden. [Reuters, September 13, 2001 as revealed by Michel Chossudovsky]
Never mind, of course, that just two days before 9-11, ISI was implicated in the assassination of Masood. Of course, not everybody was asleep on this one. At a State Department Briefing on September 13, a journalist asked Colin Powell:
[Does] the U.S. see Pakistan as an ally or, as the "Patterns of Global Terrorism" pinted out, "a place where terrorist groups get training." Or is it a mixture?
Powell's reply: We have provided to the Pakistani government a specific list of things we think would be useful for them to work on with us, and we'll be discussing that list with the President of Pakistan later this afternoon. [Michel Chossudovsky]
"Patterns of Global Terrorism" just happens to be the U.S.'s own publication... and the journalist was quoting it... This document confirms that the government of President Pervez Musharraf was part of the international terrorism "axis" saying:
Credible reporting indicates that Pakistan is providing the Taliban with material, fuel, funding, technical assistance, and military advisers. Pakistan has not prevented large numbers of Pakistani nationals from moving into Afghanistan to fight for the Taliban. Islamabad also failed to take effective steps to curb the activities of certain madrasas, or religious schools, that serves as recruiting grounds for terrorism.
In April of 2001, the U.S. declares Pakistan to be a "state sponsor" of terrorism, declares in its own publication that "The states that choose to harbor terrorists are like accomplices who provide shelter for criminals. They will be held accountable for their "guests'" actions, and on September 11, the head of the ISI - ostensibly one of those individuals who one might think is being described above- has breakfast with Bob Graham after a week of closed door "consultations" with all kinds of fun folks in Washington. In short, the Bush Reich was hunkered down in a huddle with those who were directly - right up until two days before the 9-11 attacks - aiding and abetting "international terrorism" - and then they go and announce, two days after the attack on the World Trade Center, that "U.S. officials had sought cooperation from Pakistan [precisely] because it is the original backer of the Taliban, the hard-line Islamic leadership of Afghanistan accused by Washington of harboring bin Laden" !!!?
What happened to: "The US Government has a long memory and will not simply expunge a terrorist's record because time has passed" and "The United States is committed to holding terrorists and those who harbor them accountable for past attacks, regardless of when the acts occurred" ????
Dubya announced on September 13th that the Pakistan government had agreed "to cooperate and to participate as we hunt down those people who committed this unbelievable, despicable act on America."
Watch it Georgie: Your nose is growing.
On the same day, September 13, Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf agreed with Washington that General Mahmoud Ahmad would be sent to meet with the Taliban and negotiate with them to turn over that bad, bad boy, Osama bin Laden. So, our good buddy General Ahmad, being sufficiently fortified by his breakfast with Bob Graham, left immediately to "deliver the ultimatum" to the Taliban - and no doubt some cash and a pat on the back.
At American urging, Ahmad travelled [...] to Kandahar, Afghanistan. There he delivered the bluntest of demands. Turn over bin Laden without conditions, he told Taliban leader Mohammad Omar, or face certain war with the United States and its allies. [Washington Post, September 23, 2001, referenced by Michel Chossudovsky]
Yeah right.
Of course the "negotiations" failed. They were intended to fail. How can you have a war if Osama gets turned over??? If he had been extradited, there would have been no pretext for the "war against terrorism." There would be no pretext for the current beating of the drums of war against Iraq. Heck, if Osama had been turned over, there would be no possibility that we could all be terrorized with the regular and repeated Osama Is Under Your Bed routine.
Well, everything was going along just swimmingly - the conspirators had everything under control... until... On Sunday, October 7th, just prior to the bombing of Afghanistan, General Ahmed was removed as head of ISI.
What happened to our good Breakfast Buddy?!
Apparently, at some point in the days before the bombing of Afghanistan, something extremely devastating occurred. We get a "hint" in the following:
As to September 11th, federal authorities have told ABC News they have now tracked more than $100,000 from banks in Pakistan, to two banks in FLORIDA, to accounts held by suspected hijack ring leader Mohammed Atta. As well, this morning, Time Magazine is reporting that some of that money came in the days just before the attack and can be traced directly to people connected to Osama bin Laden. It's all part of what has been a successful FBI effort so far to close in on the hijackers' high commander, the money men, the planners and the mastermind. [Statement of Brian Ross reporting on information conveyed to him by the FBI, ABC News, This Week, September 30, 2001, referenced by Michel Chossudovsky]
Now, just what the heck happened here? This statement was made on September 30, and it alludes to the fact that "just days before" the 9-11 attack took place, money was sent from a bank in Pakistan to two banks in FLORIDA.
The statement by ABC news makes the most intriguing remark that the money trail leads right to the "hijackers' high commander, the money men, the planners and the mastermind."
And we already know that General Mahmoud was having breakfast in Florida on the morning of 9-11 and that he had been in Washington and other places since September 4th. Again we notice that Florida is the "center of action" of a LOT of very strange things. It was the center of action for the rigging of the election that put Bush in the White House. It was where Bush was physically located at the time of the 9-11 attacks. It was where the hijackers were said to have lived and trained. It also happens to be the state that is governed by Dubya's brother Jeb. Lot of coincidences going on there, don't you think?
But again, the ABC report was important for what it omitted: it made NO mention whatsoever of the ISI or General Mahmoud Ahmad.
But apparently, Bob Graham's grits n' grub partner was NOW an embarrassment and had to be ditched in a hurry!
Why?
Because on the 9th of October the Times of India sez:
While the Pakistani Inter Services Public Relations claimed that former ISI director-general Lt-Gen Mahmud Ahmad sought retirement after being superseded on Monday, the truth is more shocking. Top sources confirmed here on Tuesday, that the general lost his job because of the "evidence" India produced to show his links to one of the suicide bombers that wrecked the World Trade Centre. The US authorities sought his removal after confirming the fact that $100,000 were wired to WTC hijacker Mohammed Atta from Pakistan by Ahmad Umar Sheikh at the instance of Gen Mahmoud.
Senior government sources have confirmed that India contributed significantly to establishing the link between the money transfer and the role played by the dismissed ISI chief. While they did not provide details, they said that Indian inputs, including Sheikh's mobile phone number, helped the FBI in tracing and establishing the link.
A direct link between the ISI and the WTC attack could have enormous repercussions.
The US cannot but suspect whether or not there were other senior Pakistani Army commanders who were in the know of things. Evidence of a larger conspiracy could shake US confidence in Pakistan's ability to participate in the anti-terrorism coalition. Indian officials say they are vitally interested in the unravelling of the case since it could link the ISI directly to the hijacking of the Indian Airlines Kathmandu-Delhi flight to Kandahar last December.
Ahmad Umar Sayeed Sheikh is a British national and a London School of Economics graduate who was arrested by the police in Delhi following a bungled 1994 kidnapping of four westerners, including an American citizen. [quoted by Michel Chossudovsky]
In other words, India's intelligence service had information about the money exchange that could implicate Bush and Co and was probably "blackmailing" the U.S.
Note added 2004: We also notice that India and Israel have been buddying up recently, so it is obvious that India's blackmail is paying off.
According to the FBI files, Mohammed Atta was "the Lead Hijacker" and the "head conspirator." They carefully avoided talking about General Ahmad or the ISI. And Western news articles also seem to have avoided the fact that Sheikh was a Brit with a degree in ECONOMICS.
But it seems that there was more to this little "link" than met the eye. Agence France Press confirmed the report:
A highly-placed government source told AFP that the "damning link" between the General [Mahmoud Ahmad] and the transfer of funds to Atta was part of evidence which India has officially sent to the U.S. "The evidence we have supplied to the U.S. is of a much wider range and depth than just one piece of paper linking a rogue general to some misplaced act of terrorism," the source said. [ref. Michel Chossudovsky]
Whoa! Talk about your not-very-veiled threat here!
So, what happened to that awful General Ahmad who was having breakfast with Bob Graham, and then was caught paying money to Mohammed Atta? Was he a "rogue general" or a "double agent" who was chowing down on grits and eggs, biscuits and gravy, with that good ole boy Bob Graham, all the while he was using his cell phone to transfer the big payoff to the guys just down the road so they would get those jets fired up and on target?
Well, he was appointed to the position of Governor of Punjab. Nice cushy retirement for a job well done! And even though Pakistan apparently REWARDED their "rogue general," the U.S. continues to scratch Pakistan's back.
The Times of India wasn't done playing cat and mouse with the U.S. On the 11th of October, Michel Chossudovsky points out that the following appeared:
The United States could well consider naming Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) a foreign terrorist organisation judging by the revelations spilling out now about its nefarious activities that have not only troubled India but also jeopardised Washington's battle against terrorism. [...]
Pakistanis are apt to snicker at the frequent Indian invocation of ISI for all its problems. But recent disclosures of the spy agency's dirty tricks is earning it the mistrust of even its mentors in Washington. Following last week's expose showing the money trail of the September 11 terrorist attacks leading to Pakistan with possible ISI connections comes the disclosure now that renegade ISI operatives visited Kandahar last month to help the Taliban prepare its defences and strategy against US attacks.
The clandestine visit, which came after the September 11 carnage, was reportedly made in defiance of military ruler Pervez Musharraf's orders. It was this skunk works which resulted in the replacement of the ISI chief earlier this week, according to Ahmed Rashid, author of a well-received book on the Taliban.
"Senior retired army officers said Gen. Musharraf was infuriated when informed of the officers' trip because it could have jeopardized Pakistan's relations with the United States and Britain. There is no suggestion that Gen. Ahmad knew about the trip either, but he nevertheless resigned as ISI chief," Rashid, whose work is highly respected in western circles, wrote in an article published simultaneously in London's Daily Telegraph and The Washington Times. [...]
Indian intelligence agencies have long mapped the ISI operations, ascribing to it everything from terrorism to drug-running, and even subverting Pakistan's own democracy. Indian officials have also noted that several former ISI chiefs have been given important diplomatic assignments, including ambassadorships to key European countries, to enable Islamabad advance its nuclear program. Former ISI chiefs like Hamid Gul and Javed Nasir have grown old preaching the destruction of India and pontificating about its imminent collapse. [...]
Washington has been far more credulous about the ISI and has frequently entertained both former and incumbent spymasters, evidently under the illusion that the maverick organisation is still beholden to the CIA for the close ties developed during the "golden" 1980s decade. That was when the two organisations worked hand in glove to arm the Afghan Mujaheddin ("Mooj" in CIA parlance) against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. [...]
Although the two agencies fell out in the early 1990s amid reports of financial skullduggery by the ISI and a spat over weapons inventory, especially missing Stinger missiles, Washington continued to engage important Pakistani spooks. It was mandatory for all new ISI chiefs to pay their respects - in appearance at least - to Langley and Foggy Bottom, home of the CIA and the State Department respectively. Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharief chief spymaster Gen. Ziauddin was in Washington a fortnight before he (Sharief) was deposed and Musharraf's chief spook Gen. Mahmoud Ahmed was also here on the day of the terrorist attack and he (Ahmed) was sacked thereafter. [...]
Why the Bush administration continues to consort with the ISI, when there is probably enough material to proscribe it, is something of a mystery.
Well, it's not really too hard to figure it out. When ABC news reported:
... federal authorities have told ABC News they have now tracked more than $100,000 from banks in Pakistan, to two banks in FLORIDA ... some of that money came in the days just before the attack and can be traced directly to people connected to Osama bin Laden... the hijackers' high commander, the money men, the planners and the mastermind...
...they were telling the truth. They are all members of the same CULT.
Exert from http://www.cassiopaea.org/cass/mahmoud_ahmed.htm
Also from http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO206A.html
Schedule of Pakistan's Chief of Military Intelligence Lt. General Mahmoud Ahmad, Washington, 4-13 September 2001
Summer 2001: ISI Chief Lt. General Mahmoud Ahmad transfers $100,000 to 9-11 Ringleader Mohamed Atta.
4 September: Ahmad arrives in the US on an official visit.
4-9 September: He meets his US counterparts including CIA Head George Tenet.
9 September: Assassination of General Massood, leader of the Northern Alliance. Official statement by Northern Alliance points to involvement of the ISI-Osama-Taliban axis.
11 September: Terrorist Attacks on the WTC and the Pentagon. At the time of the attacks, Lt General Ahmad was at a breakfast meeting at the Capitol with the chairmen of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees Sen Bob Graham and Rep Porter Goss. Also present at the meeting were Sen. John Kyl and the Pakistani ambassador to the U.S., Maleeha Lodhi.
12-13 September: Meetings between Lt. General Ahmad and Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage. Agreement on Pakistan's collaboration negotiated between Ahmad and Armitage. Meeting between General Ahmad and Secretary of State Colin Powell
13 September: Ahmad meets Senator Joseph Biden, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Which brings us back to General Mahmoud Ahmad having breakfast with Bob Graham and others on the morning of 9-11.
On May 16, shortly after the New York Post bomb was dropped, Michel Chossudovsky informs us that Condoleezza Rice held a press conference to address the issue. At this press conference something very interesting happened: an Indian journalist asked Ms. Rice a question and in the public transcripts of this interview, it went as follows:
Q: Are you aware of the reports at the time that (inaudible) was in Washinton on September 11. And on September 10, $100,000 was wired from Pakistan to these groups here in thie area? And while he was here, was he meeting with you or anybody in the administration?
Rice: I have not seen that report, and he was certainly not meeting with me.
Now, what was excluded in the publicly released transcripts of this press conference? What was actually IN those brackets where we see the word "inaudible"?
Here is the copy of the Federal News Service, May 16, 2002, Special White House Briefing:
Q: Are you aware of the reports at the time that THE ISI CHIEF was in Washington...
Back up now - feets don't fail me - this is a real clue here and we have Michel Chossudovsky to thank for this one.
WHY is this being hidden by the media? WHY is the designation of the individual who was in Washington being covered up in this stupid little gaffe - this "(inaudible)" when it was clearly audible and heard by others and recorded?
WHO is being concealed?
The ISI Chief: General Mahmoud Ahmad of Pakistan. Remember our little collection of FACTS from Michel Chossudovsky?
1) The purported 9-11 ringleader - Mohammed Atta - according to ABC news, was financed by "unnamed sources in Pakistan." According to Agence France Presse and the Times of India, an official Indian intelligence report informs us that the 9-11 attacks were funded by money wired to Mohammed Atta from Pakistan, by Ahmad Umar Sheikh, under orders from Pakistani intelligence chief General Mahmoud Ahmad. The report said: "The evidence we have supplied to the U.S. is of a much wider range and depth than just one piece of paper linking a rogue general to some misplaced act of terrorism."
2) General Mahmoud Ahmad was in the U.S. on September 11. He arrived on the 4th on a "routine visit." It was confirmed by news sources that Ahmad met with a number of U.S. officials.
Colin Powell,
Richard Armitage,
Marc Grossman,
CIA Director George Tenet,
Senator Bob Graham, chairman of Senate Intelligence Committee,
Senator John Kyl, Senate Intelligence Committee,
Rep. Porter Goss, Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee,
Senator Joseph Biden, Chariman of Foreign Relations Committee.
And we come back to that most interesting item: On the morning of September 11, General Mahmoud Ahmad was having breakfast with Florida's senator, Bob Graham - chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
Also present at breakfast was Pakistan's ambassador to the U.S. Maleeha Lodhi. There were other members of the Senate and House Intelligence committees present. And that leads us right back to the Oval Office of the White House. Suddenly, all the pieces begin to fall into place.
When the news [of the attacks on the World Trade Center] came, the two Florida lawmakers who lead the House and Senate intelligence committees were having breakfast with the head of the Pakistani intelligence service. Rep. Porter Goss, R-Sanibel, Sen. Bob Graham and other members of the House Intelligence Committee were talking about terrorism issues with the Pakistani official when a member of Goss' staff handed a note to Goss, who handed it to Graham. "We were talking about terrorism, specifically terrorism generated from Afghanistan," Graham said.
Mahmoud Ahmed, director general of Pakistan's intelligence service was "very empathetic, sympathetic to the people of the United States," Graham said.
Goss could not be reached Tuesday. He was whisked away with much of the House leadership to an undisclosed "secure location". Graham, meanwhile, participated in late-afternoon briefings with top officials from the CIA and FBI." [Stuart News Company Press Journal, Vero Beach, FL, September 12, 2001 as quoted by Michel Chossudovsky]
.....In fact, the News of Pakistan reported the visit BEFORE September 11:
ISI Chief Lt. Gen. Mahmoud's week-long presence in Washinton has triggered speculation about the agenda of his mysterious meetings at the Pentagon and National Security Council. Officially, he is on a routine visit in return for CIA Director George Tenet's earlier visit to Islamabad. Official sources confirm that he met Tenet this week. He also held long parleys with unspecified officials at the White House and the Pentagon. But the most important meeting was with Marc Grossman, U.S. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs. One can safely guess that the discussions must have centred around Afghanistan ... and Osama bin Laden. What added interest to his visit is the history of such visits. Last time Ziauddin Butt, Mahmoud's predecessor, was here, during Nawaz Sharif's goernment, the domestic politics turned topsy-turvy within days. [Amir Mateen, News Pakistan, September 10, 2001 as quoted by Michel Chossudovsky]
Nawaz Sharif was overthrown by General Pervez Musharaf. General Mahmoud Ahmad, who became the head of the ISI, played a key role in the military coup. [Michel Chossudovsky]
It was in the news (even if the major media sources deliberately ignored it), so how come Condoleezza Rice didn't know about it?
The existence of an ISI-Osama-Taliban-CIA-US government axis is a matter of public record. However, what was NOT expected - obviously - was the revelation by Indian intelligence - that the $100,000 bux was paid to Mohammed Atta on the orders of the guy having breakfast with Bob Graham - the same guy who was meeting with all the likely conspirators.
The Bush administration's relations with pakistan's ISI - including the week of meetings and "consultations" with General Mahmoud Ahmad prior to September 11 - raise not only the issue of "cover-up" but of DIRECT COMPLICITY. At the very least, this suggests that key individuals within the U.S. military-intelligence establishment knew about the attack in some detail and failed to act. At worst, it suggests that the many irregularities noted about the behavior of Bush and his gang prior to, during, and following the 9-11 attacks were indicative of direct participation in the planning of the events, even to the "piggy-backing" of the drone plane attack on the Pentagon to divert suspicion away from the U.S. military.
What is crystal clear, however, is that this war is not a "campaign against international terrorism." It is a war of conquest with devastating consequences for the future of humanity. and the American people have been consciously and deliberately deceived by their government. [Chossudovsky]
Another interesting note is the comment that the last time the ISI chief of Pakistan was in Washington, the "domestic politics turned topsy turvy within days." Did the CIA help General Pervez Musharraf to overthrow Nawaz Sharif and now the favor was being returned? Just a little matter of the transfer of $100,000 bux - thirty pieces of silver to betray the American people?
Now, let's back up just a short while before the September 11 attack. Michel Chossudovsky reveals that, on September 9, the leader of the Northern Alliance, Commander Ahmad Shah Masood, was assassinated. The Northern Alliance informed the Bush administration that the ISI of Pakistan was implicated in the murder.
However, if you do a web search for articles on this matter, you will find that the Western Media repeatedly says that Masood was assassinated by "Arab militants" - very often specifically naming Al Qaeda.
What is omitted is the official statement: A "Pakistani ISI- Osama - Taliban axis" [was responsible for] plotting the assassination by two Arab suicide bombers. [...] "We believe that this is a triangle between Osama bin Laden, ISI, which is the intelligence section of the Pakistani Army, and the Taliban." [The Northern Alliance Statement released on September 14, 2001, quoted by Reuters News Service on September 15, 2001]
So, the complicity of the ISI in relation to Osama and the Taliban IS a matter of Public Record and is also in the Congressional transcripts.
However, what we see on the surface is that General Mahmoud, the head of the ISI, was having breakfast with Bob Graham in Florida on the morning of September 11, and that a couple of days later - with full awareness of the connections between ISI and Taliban - including the assassination of Masood just two days earlier - the Bush Administration announced that it would "directly cooperate" with Pakistan's ISI. Isn't that just a little bit like asking the fox to watch the henhouse? How did they DO that?
It was simple. The Western Mass Media, in full support of the Bush Reich (as is evident throughout the events of the past 14 months) remained completely silent on the role of Pakistan's ISI, even to the extent of inserting an (inaudible) in the published text of the question asked of Condoleezza Rice on May 16, 2002. It was NOT a coincidence that this question was addressed by an INDIAN journalist. So it was that the cover-up of ISI's position in the Taliban-Osama axis was underway and America declared Pakistan to be the "friend and ally" of America in those dark days following 9-11. And how did they explain it?
U.S. officials had sought cooperation from Pakistan [precisely] because it is the original backer of the Taliban, the hard-line Islamic leadership of Afghanistan accused by Washington of harboring bin Laden. [Reuters, September 13, 2001 as revealed by Michel Chossudovsky]
Never mind, of course, that just two days before 9-11, ISI was implicated in the assassination of Masood. Of course, not everybody was asleep on this one. At a State Department Briefing on September 13, a journalist asked Colin Powell:
[Does] the U.S. see Pakistan as an ally or, as the "Patterns of Global Terrorism" pinted out, "a place where terrorist groups get training." Or is it a mixture?
Powell's reply: We have provided to the Pakistani government a specific list of things we think would be useful for them to work on with us, and we'll be discussing that list with the President of Pakistan later this afternoon. [Michel Chossudovsky]
"Patterns of Global Terrorism" just happens to be the U.S.'s own publication... and the journalist was quoting it... This document confirms that the government of President Pervez Musharraf was part of the international terrorism "axis" saying:
Credible reporting indicates that Pakistan is providing the Taliban with material, fuel, funding, technical assistance, and military advisers. Pakistan has not prevented large numbers of Pakistani nationals from moving into Afghanistan to fight for the Taliban. Islamabad also failed to take effective steps to curb the activities of certain madrasas, or religious schools, that serves as recruiting grounds for terrorism.
In April of 2001, the U.S. declares Pakistan to be a "state sponsor" of terrorism, declares in its own publication that "The states that choose to harbor terrorists are like accomplices who provide shelter for criminals. They will be held accountable for their "guests'" actions, and on September 11, the head of the ISI - ostensibly one of those individuals who one might think is being described above- has breakfast with Bob Graham after a week of closed door "consultations" with all kinds of fun folks in Washington. In short, the Bush Reich was hunkered down in a huddle with those who were directly - right up until two days before the 9-11 attacks - aiding and abetting "international terrorism" - and then they go and announce, two days after the attack on the World Trade Center, that "U.S. officials had sought cooperation from Pakistan [precisely] because it is the original backer of the Taliban, the hard-line Islamic leadership of Afghanistan accused by Washington of harboring bin Laden" !!!?
What happened to: "The US Government has a long memory and will not simply expunge a terrorist's record because time has passed" and "The United States is committed to holding terrorists and those who harbor them accountable for past attacks, regardless of when the acts occurred" ????
Dubya announced on September 13th that the Pakistan government had agreed "to cooperate and to participate as we hunt down those people who committed this unbelievable, despicable act on America."
Watch it Georgie: Your nose is growing.
On the same day, September 13, Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf agreed with Washington that General Mahmoud Ahmad would be sent to meet with the Taliban and negotiate with them to turn over that bad, bad boy, Osama bin Laden. So, our good buddy General Ahmad, being sufficiently fortified by his breakfast with Bob Graham, left immediately to "deliver the ultimatum" to the Taliban - and no doubt some cash and a pat on the back.
At American urging, Ahmad travelled [...] to Kandahar, Afghanistan. There he delivered the bluntest of demands. Turn over bin Laden without conditions, he told Taliban leader Mohammad Omar, or face certain war with the United States and its allies. [Washington Post, September 23, 2001, referenced by Michel Chossudovsky]
Yeah right.
Of course the "negotiations" failed. They were intended to fail. How can you have a war if Osama gets turned over??? If he had been extradited, there would have been no pretext for the "war against terrorism." There would be no pretext for the current beating of the drums of war against Iraq. Heck, if Osama had been turned over, there would be no possibility that we could all be terrorized with the regular and repeated Osama Is Under Your Bed routine.
Well, everything was going along just swimmingly - the conspirators had everything under control... until... On Sunday, October 7th, just prior to the bombing of Afghanistan, General Ahmed was removed as head of ISI.
What happened to our good Breakfast Buddy?!
Apparently, at some point in the days before the bombing of Afghanistan, something extremely devastating occurred. We get a "hint" in the following:
As to September 11th, federal authorities have told ABC News they have now tracked more than $100,000 from banks in Pakistan, to two banks in FLORIDA, to accounts held by suspected hijack ring leader Mohammed Atta. As well, this morning, Time Magazine is reporting that some of that money came in the days just before the attack and can be traced directly to people connected to Osama bin Laden. It's all part of what has been a successful FBI effort so far to close in on the hijackers' high commander, the money men, the planners and the mastermind. [Statement of Brian Ross reporting on information conveyed to him by the FBI, ABC News, This Week, September 30, 2001, referenced by Michel Chossudovsky]
Now, just what the heck happened here? This statement was made on September 30, and it alludes to the fact that "just days before" the 9-11 attack took place, money was sent from a bank in Pakistan to two banks in FLORIDA.
The statement by ABC news makes the most intriguing remark that the money trail leads right to the "hijackers' high commander, the money men, the planners and the mastermind."
And we already know that General Mahmoud was having breakfast in Florida on the morning of 9-11 and that he had been in Washington and other places since September 4th. Again we notice that Florida is the "center of action" of a LOT of very strange things. It was the center of action for the rigging of the election that put Bush in the White House. It was where Bush was physically located at the time of the 9-11 attacks. It was where the hijackers were said to have lived and trained. It also happens to be the state that is governed by Dubya's brother Jeb. Lot of coincidences going on there, don't you think?
But again, the ABC report was important for what it omitted: it made NO mention whatsoever of the ISI or General Mahmoud Ahmad.
But apparently, Bob Graham's grits n' grub partner was NOW an embarrassment and had to be ditched in a hurry!
Why?
Because on the 9th of October the Times of India sez:
While the Pakistani Inter Services Public Relations claimed that former ISI director-general Lt-Gen Mahmud Ahmad sought retirement after being superseded on Monday, the truth is more shocking. Top sources confirmed here on Tuesday, that the general lost his job because of the "evidence" India produced to show his links to one of the suicide bombers that wrecked the World Trade Centre. The US authorities sought his removal after confirming the fact that $100,000 were wired to WTC hijacker Mohammed Atta from Pakistan by Ahmad Umar Sheikh at the instance of Gen Mahmoud.
Senior government sources have confirmed that India contributed significantly to establishing the link between the money transfer and the role played by the dismissed ISI chief. While they did not provide details, they said that Indian inputs, including Sheikh's mobile phone number, helped the FBI in tracing and establishing the link.
A direct link between the ISI and the WTC attack could have enormous repercussions.
The US cannot but suspect whether or not there were other senior Pakistani Army commanders who were in the know of things. Evidence of a larger conspiracy could shake US confidence in Pakistan's ability to participate in the anti-terrorism coalition. Indian officials say they are vitally interested in the unravelling of the case since it could link the ISI directly to the hijacking of the Indian Airlines Kathmandu-Delhi flight to Kandahar last December.
Ahmad Umar Sayeed Sheikh is a British national and a London School of Economics graduate who was arrested by the police in Delhi following a bungled 1994 kidnapping of four westerners, including an American citizen. [quoted by Michel Chossudovsky]
In other words, India's intelligence service had information about the money exchange that could implicate Bush and Co and was probably "blackmailing" the U.S.
Note added 2004: We also notice that India and Israel have been buddying up recently, so it is obvious that India's blackmail is paying off.
According to the FBI files, Mohammed Atta was "the Lead Hijacker" and the "head conspirator." They carefully avoided talking about General Ahmad or the ISI. And Western news articles also seem to have avoided the fact that Sheikh was a Brit with a degree in ECONOMICS.
But it seems that there was more to this little "link" than met the eye. Agence France Press confirmed the report:
A highly-placed government source told AFP that the "damning link" between the General [Mahmoud Ahmad] and the transfer of funds to Atta was part of evidence which India has officially sent to the U.S. "The evidence we have supplied to the U.S. is of a much wider range and depth than just one piece of paper linking a rogue general to some misplaced act of terrorism," the source said. [ref. Michel Chossudovsky]
Whoa! Talk about your not-very-veiled threat here!
So, what happened to that awful General Ahmad who was having breakfast with Bob Graham, and then was caught paying money to Mohammed Atta? Was he a "rogue general" or a "double agent" who was chowing down on grits and eggs, biscuits and gravy, with that good ole boy Bob Graham, all the while he was using his cell phone to transfer the big payoff to the guys just down the road so they would get those jets fired up and on target?
Well, he was appointed to the position of Governor of Punjab. Nice cushy retirement for a job well done! And even though Pakistan apparently REWARDED their "rogue general," the U.S. continues to scratch Pakistan's back.
The Times of India wasn't done playing cat and mouse with the U.S. On the 11th of October, Michel Chossudovsky points out that the following appeared:
The United States could well consider naming Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) a foreign terrorist organisation judging by the revelations spilling out now about its nefarious activities that have not only troubled India but also jeopardised Washington's battle against terrorism. [...]
Pakistanis are apt to snicker at the frequent Indian invocation of ISI for all its problems. But recent disclosures of the spy agency's dirty tricks is earning it the mistrust of even its mentors in Washington. Following last week's expose showing the money trail of the September 11 terrorist attacks leading to Pakistan with possible ISI connections comes the disclosure now that renegade ISI operatives visited Kandahar last month to help the Taliban prepare its defences and strategy against US attacks.
The clandestine visit, which came after the September 11 carnage, was reportedly made in defiance of military ruler Pervez Musharraf's orders. It was this skunk works which resulted in the replacement of the ISI chief earlier this week, according to Ahmed Rashid, author of a well-received book on the Taliban.
"Senior retired army officers said Gen. Musharraf was infuriated when informed of the officers' trip because it could have jeopardized Pakistan's relations with the United States and Britain. There is no suggestion that Gen. Ahmad knew about the trip either, but he nevertheless resigned as ISI chief," Rashid, whose work is highly respected in western circles, wrote in an article published simultaneously in London's Daily Telegraph and The Washington Times. [...]
Indian intelligence agencies have long mapped the ISI operations, ascribing to it everything from terrorism to drug-running, and even subverting Pakistan's own democracy. Indian officials have also noted that several former ISI chiefs have been given important diplomatic assignments, including ambassadorships to key European countries, to enable Islamabad advance its nuclear program. Former ISI chiefs like Hamid Gul and Javed Nasir have grown old preaching the destruction of India and pontificating about its imminent collapse. [...]
Washington has been far more credulous about the ISI and has frequently entertained both former and incumbent spymasters, evidently under the illusion that the maverick organisation is still beholden to the CIA for the close ties developed during the "golden" 1980s decade. That was when the two organisations worked hand in glove to arm the Afghan Mujaheddin ("Mooj" in CIA parlance) against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. [...]
Although the two agencies fell out in the early 1990s amid reports of financial skullduggery by the ISI and a spat over weapons inventory, especially missing Stinger missiles, Washington continued to engage important Pakistani spooks. It was mandatory for all new ISI chiefs to pay their respects - in appearance at least - to Langley and Foggy Bottom, home of the CIA and the State Department respectively. Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharief chief spymaster Gen. Ziauddin was in Washington a fortnight before he (Sharief) was deposed and Musharraf's chief spook Gen. Mahmoud Ahmed was also here on the day of the terrorist attack and he (Ahmed) was sacked thereafter. [...]
Why the Bush administration continues to consort with the ISI, when there is probably enough material to proscribe it, is something of a mystery.
Well, it's not really too hard to figure it out. When ABC news reported:
... federal authorities have told ABC News they have now tracked more than $100,000 from banks in Pakistan, to two banks in FLORIDA ... some of that money came in the days just before the attack and can be traced directly to people connected to Osama bin Laden... the hijackers' high commander, the money men, the planners and the mastermind...
...they were telling the truth. They are all members of the same CULT.
911 Coverup: Black boxes were found
FBI Tells 911 Rescue Worker
To 'Shut Up' Over Finding
Airplane 'Black Boxes'
By Greg Szymanski
4-17-2005
Two ground zero workers go public about finding cockpit and flight data recorders from Flight 11 and 175. Government claims 'black boxes' from the doomed 911 flights were never found. 911 Commission ignores information and fails to interview rescue workers.
A 911 rescue worker said this week he was told by FBI agents to "keep his mouth shut" about one of the "black boxes" found at ground zero, contradicting the official story that none of the flight and cockpit data recorders were ever recovered in the WTC wreckage.
Honorary firefighter Mike Bellone claims he was approached by unknown bureau agents a short time after he and his partner Nicholas DeMasi, a retired New York firefighter, found three of the four "black boxes" among the WTC rubble before January 2002.
The pair first claimed to find the data recorders in an August 2003 book entitled "Behind The Scene: Ground Zero" when DeMasi said the "black boxes" were found while he traversed ground zero in his ATV with three federal agents.
FBI and New York fire officials have denied ever finding the voice and data recorders.
Now Bellone claims agents were adamant about keeping the discovery a secret.
"They confronted me and told me to not to say anything," recalls Bellone, referring to one of three reddish-orange boxes with two white stripes he saw in the back of DeMasi's ATV. "I said give me a good reason? When they couldn't, I told them I wouldn't shut up about it.
"Why should I? I have nothing to hide and nothing to gain. It's the truth and Nick and I are sticking to our story as we always have."
Bellone said he and DeMasi were not the only 911 rescue workers to see the black boxes. He said there were several other witnesses and knows first hand they have been silenced by federal agents.
"I know two or three others saw what went down, but they are not talking," added Bellone. "They got to those guys after they talked to me. The only reason I can figure they are trying to hide the truth is that the government knows it screwed up and the recorders would prove it."
Asked to give names of the other witnesses, he said he wouldn't break a fellow-worker's confidence, privacy and firm desire to remain anonymous.
"I can tell you this, though, it was all very strange. I worked on the spaceship Columbia clean-up and you know when something important is found and when something is not" he recalled, saying the day the 'black boxes' were secretly carted away agents acted like "something big was going down."
Bellone also recalled never learning the FBI names as this type of personal contact and information wasn't exchanged between the civilian workers and government officials working side-by-side at ground zero.
"We worked together, but nobody knew their names," added Bellone. "They had on their FBI jackets, but I'm sure I could pick them out of a line-up or recognize their pictures."
The pair's bombshell accusations blows a big hole in the official story as well as the findings in the recent 911 Commission report. In Chapter 1, footnote 76, there is the sole but definitive reference to the airline "black boxes":
"The CVR's and the FDR's (voice and flight data recorders) from American 11 and United 175 were not found."
Asked if DeMasi and Bellone were questioned or subpoenaed, Commission spokesman Al Felzenberg said:
"I can't tell you now if he was is one of the 1,200 people we interviewed or if the book was one of the countless ones we researched. We explored every lead, but I will try to find out if we talked with him and get back to you"
However, Bellone said he and DeMasi never were contacted by Commission members or asked to appear regarding their statements even though the book was published well before the hearings commenced.
And it's amazing with a story of such importance that in over a year since the book surfaced almost nobody else has called them either. It's hard to imagine a story with such magnitude has not been thoroughly checked out unless the mainstream press purposely ignored it.
"I have been contacted by only one newspaper reporter from the Philadelphia Daily News. That's it," he said, referring to an October 2004 story by reporter William Bunch, recapping DeMasi's book statements as well as the usual official denials.
Those close to the 911 investigation said the recovery of the "black boxes" is important, holding vital clues and leading to the truth of what really happened on the morning of 911.
The cockpit voice recorder uses a pair of microphones to capture all cockpit sounds for the last 30 minutes of a doomed flight. The flight date recorder is also significant since it records altitude, heading and airspeed.
Both recorders are designed to withstand enormous impact and heat. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) officials said they should have withstood the conditions at the WTC.
And finding the boxes after a crash seems to be standard procedure, according to the NTSB.
"It's extremely rare that we don't get the recorders back,' said NTSB spokesman Ted Lopatkiewicz. "I can't remember another case which we did not recover the recorders."
Bellone is retired and was made an honorary New York fireman for his efforts after 911. DeMasi also recently retired from Engine Co. 261, nicknamed the "Flaming Skulls," after serving a brief stint after 911 with the fire department's marine unit.
First posted 12-04 http://www.arcticbeacon.citymaker.com/articles/article/1518131/17860.htm
To 'Shut Up' Over Finding
Airplane 'Black Boxes'
By Greg Szymanski
4-17-2005
Two ground zero workers go public about finding cockpit and flight data recorders from Flight 11 and 175. Government claims 'black boxes' from the doomed 911 flights were never found. 911 Commission ignores information and fails to interview rescue workers.
A 911 rescue worker said this week he was told by FBI agents to "keep his mouth shut" about one of the "black boxes" found at ground zero, contradicting the official story that none of the flight and cockpit data recorders were ever recovered in the WTC wreckage.
Honorary firefighter Mike Bellone claims he was approached by unknown bureau agents a short time after he and his partner Nicholas DeMasi, a retired New York firefighter, found three of the four "black boxes" among the WTC rubble before January 2002.
The pair first claimed to find the data recorders in an August 2003 book entitled "Behind The Scene: Ground Zero" when DeMasi said the "black boxes" were found while he traversed ground zero in his ATV with three federal agents.
FBI and New York fire officials have denied ever finding the voice and data recorders.
Now Bellone claims agents were adamant about keeping the discovery a secret.
"They confronted me and told me to not to say anything," recalls Bellone, referring to one of three reddish-orange boxes with two white stripes he saw in the back of DeMasi's ATV. "I said give me a good reason? When they couldn't, I told them I wouldn't shut up about it.
"Why should I? I have nothing to hide and nothing to gain. It's the truth and Nick and I are sticking to our story as we always have."
Bellone said he and DeMasi were not the only 911 rescue workers to see the black boxes. He said there were several other witnesses and knows first hand they have been silenced by federal agents.
"I know two or three others saw what went down, but they are not talking," added Bellone. "They got to those guys after they talked to me. The only reason I can figure they are trying to hide the truth is that the government knows it screwed up and the recorders would prove it."
Asked to give names of the other witnesses, he said he wouldn't break a fellow-worker's confidence, privacy and firm desire to remain anonymous.
"I can tell you this, though, it was all very strange. I worked on the spaceship Columbia clean-up and you know when something important is found and when something is not" he recalled, saying the day the 'black boxes' were secretly carted away agents acted like "something big was going down."
Bellone also recalled never learning the FBI names as this type of personal contact and information wasn't exchanged between the civilian workers and government officials working side-by-side at ground zero.
"We worked together, but nobody knew their names," added Bellone. "They had on their FBI jackets, but I'm sure I could pick them out of a line-up or recognize their pictures."
The pair's bombshell accusations blows a big hole in the official story as well as the findings in the recent 911 Commission report. In Chapter 1, footnote 76, there is the sole but definitive reference to the airline "black boxes":
"The CVR's and the FDR's (voice and flight data recorders) from American 11 and United 175 were not found."
Asked if DeMasi and Bellone were questioned or subpoenaed, Commission spokesman Al Felzenberg said:
"I can't tell you now if he was is one of the 1,200 people we interviewed or if the book was one of the countless ones we researched. We explored every lead, but I will try to find out if we talked with him and get back to you"
However, Bellone said he and DeMasi never were contacted by Commission members or asked to appear regarding their statements even though the book was published well before the hearings commenced.
And it's amazing with a story of such importance that in over a year since the book surfaced almost nobody else has called them either. It's hard to imagine a story with such magnitude has not been thoroughly checked out unless the mainstream press purposely ignored it.
"I have been contacted by only one newspaper reporter from the Philadelphia Daily News. That's it," he said, referring to an October 2004 story by reporter William Bunch, recapping DeMasi's book statements as well as the usual official denials.
Those close to the 911 investigation said the recovery of the "black boxes" is important, holding vital clues and leading to the truth of what really happened on the morning of 911.
The cockpit voice recorder uses a pair of microphones to capture all cockpit sounds for the last 30 minutes of a doomed flight. The flight date recorder is also significant since it records altitude, heading and airspeed.
Both recorders are designed to withstand enormous impact and heat. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) officials said they should have withstood the conditions at the WTC.
And finding the boxes after a crash seems to be standard procedure, according to the NTSB.
"It's extremely rare that we don't get the recorders back,' said NTSB spokesman Ted Lopatkiewicz. "I can't remember another case which we did not recover the recorders."
Bellone is retired and was made an honorary New York fireman for his efforts after 911. DeMasi also recently retired from Engine Co. 261, nicknamed the "Flaming Skulls," after serving a brief stint after 911 with the fire department's marine unit.
First posted 12-04 http://www.arcticbeacon.citymaker.com/articles/article/1518131/17860.htm
Monday 10 May 2010
What if Dark Matter does not exist?
I am no scientist but have always loved cosmology, even though my knowledge of teh stars is close to zero. What is fascinating is how the various 20th century theories to explain phenomenon like the Big Bang, and the absence of mass predicted by Big bang theories is leading increasingly to a dead end. Current theories cannot be matched to observable data, and so lots of exceptions have to be created. Dark matter and dark energy are two as yet unproven propositions used to explain the apparent accelerating universal expansion. This piece suggests that Dark Matter theories are not backed up by observation of distant galaxies.
Fundamentally, science goes through periods of innovation and then crisis and then revolution (Kuhn's paradigm shifts). We are probably on the verge of a revolution in cosmology because current theories are in crisis.
Theoretical physics takes us away from the minutae of human affairs, such as the elections, to broader questions of the nature of existence and the universe. Social theories are imperfect and always evolving in line with human social evolution. There are no revolutionary trends at present in social theory, but there are conflicts of values and world views, although less than in the past. God has lost his throne but science is struggling to replace God. Science is clearly superior for explaining nature and the universe, and ourselves. And yet our knowledge is limited. We are almost certainly only in the foothills of discovery, trapped as we are on a small planet in a vast and ancient universe in which the lifespan of the human race, never mind each human, is a flash in the pan.
Fundamentally, science goes through periods of innovation and then crisis and then revolution (Kuhn's paradigm shifts). We are probably on the verge of a revolution in cosmology because current theories are in crisis.
Theoretical physics takes us away from the minutae of human affairs, such as the elections, to broader questions of the nature of existence and the universe. Social theories are imperfect and always evolving in line with human social evolution. There are no revolutionary trends at present in social theory, but there are conflicts of values and world views, although less than in the past. God has lost his throne but science is struggling to replace God. Science is clearly superior for explaining nature and the universe, and ourselves. And yet our knowledge is limited. We are almost certainly only in the foothills of discovery, trapped as we are on a small planet in a vast and ancient universe in which the lifespan of the human race, never mind each human, is a flash in the pan.
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